French income tax cuts promised earlier this month by President Francois Hollande will not come at the expense of the country's deficit reduction targets, Finance Minister Michel Sapin said on Monday. "We will cut taxes - that's not to increase them elsewhere," Sapin said on France Info radio. "Secondly, we won't modify our deficit reduction targets." The French government is targeting a public deficit of 3.8 percent of GDP in 2015 and 3.3 percent in 2016, down from 4.0 percent last year.
The targets are part of its undertaking to European partners, who want the country to get its deficit back below the 3 percent target for euro zone countries. Sapin said he would not confirm or deny a report in Monday's Les Echos newspaper which valued the tax cuts Hollande promised for 2016 at around 2 billion euros ($2.25 billion), but he went on to say: "Have confidence in us. There are the means within the considerable sums spent by the state, local authorities and social security spend to find 2 billion to give back a part of the efforts of the lowest-paid French people... two, three four, take the figure you want."